In many medical applications such as medical imaging and radiation therapy the quality of the outcomes is significantly impaired by patient and organ motion. Especially in abdominal radiation therapy patient and organ movement is a crucial factor.
The accuracy of current radiation methods lies well within the millimeter range. However, in clinical practice the achievable precision of radiation therapy when irradiating a tumor within the abdomen is largely reduced due to motion induced by breathing, heart beat and intestine peristalsis. Due to the mentioned motion the irradiated volume has to be increased by an additional margin to ensure sufficient (i.e. the pre-scribed) radiation dose within the diagnosed tumor volume. This margin usually has to be chosen in the range of several centimeters so that organs at risk suffer from a significantly elevated exposure to radiation. To minimize the required radiation dosage the motion of the irradiated object has to be controlled and/or corrected for.